


Late

by cassiopeiablack1994



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Established James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Established Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV Alternating, Quidditch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29651076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiopeiablack1994/pseuds/cassiopeiablack1994
Summary: In June of 1985, Snitch magazine had put together a compilation of photos of James Potter and Sirius Black of the Wimbourne Wasps. The pair were shown hugging post-match, talking animatedly at a black tie gala for the team, arm in arm while out on a shopping trip. There was even one photo of them sipping from the same smoothie, which the magazine declared was conclusive evidence of their sexual relationship. When asked about it in an interview, James and Sirius, professionals that they were, responded by ignoring the interviewer and sharing a long, exaggerated kiss for the camera. They thought it was hilarious. Their spouses took a different view.
Relationships: Regulus Black/Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin & Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black & Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black/James Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. First Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of what I expect will be quite a long fic. I have a lot of ideas for this. We will be switching between school years and present (which is 1985).

In June of 1985, Snitch magazine had put together a compilation of photos of James Potter and Sirius Black of the Wimbourne Wasps. The pair were shown hugging post-match, talking animatedly at a black tie gala for the team, arm in arm while out on a shopping trip. There was even one photo of them sipping from the same smoothie, which the magazine declared was conclusive evidence of their sexual relationship. When asked about it in an interview, James and Sirius, professionals that they were, responded by ignoring the interviewer and sharing a long, exaggerated kiss for the camera. They thought it was hilarious. Their spouses took a different view.

Lily Evans Potter was still staring at the moving photo in the Prophet when her husband got home from practice. “How was your day, love?” James asked, kissing his wife on the cheek after setting his bag of gear down by the door. Lily was sitting on the floral couch in their living room, a copy of the Daily Prophet on her lap and a pile of letters on the coffee table. “What’s all this?”

“This!” Lily began at a volume James had not been prepared for “is about 40 letters, some of them from people we know, asking how long your affair has been going on and whether or not we have gotten a hushed up divorce!” Lily’s face turned positively purple with rage as her husband’s only response was to burst out laughing.

“Wow, people really will believe whatever those rags tell them.”

“You two are snogging on the cover of the Daily Prophet sports section!” She thrust the newspaper in his face to emphasise her point. James’ eyes widened. He hadn’t thought the story would get this kind of attention.

“Aw Lils calm down. You saw that rubbish in the Snitch, and then that reporter gave us the perfect opening, we just had to mess with them a bit. It’s not like it’s real.” Lily did calm down a bit, but the anger didn’t leave her eyes.

“It’s embarrassing James. And the fact of the matter is, you two look way too comfortable with your tongues down each other’s throats. I know you think you’re just messing around, but I’m not okay with this.”

“I’m sorry.” James said immediately “I really didn’t think you would mind.” He didn’t know what to say about the rest of it. Looking at the photo, she had a point. It had come too easily to them. He could never be uncomfortable with Sirius, no matter what they were doing. They had spent too much of their lives with each other, knew each other too well. They could each provide a list of the other’s darkest secrets and deepest faults more accurate than any they could attempt to make of their own. And the truth of it was, James had been excited to kiss him. Probably the only thing his best friend didn’t know about him was how much he used to wish they were more. He certainly wasn’t about to tell Lily that. So instead he patted her back comfortingly and promised he would never do anything like that again.

Meanwhile in Cheshire, Remus expressed his disappointment in a more restrained way. Remus was quite familiar with the way his husband and their best friend frequently acted like reckless idiots despite their actually very strong intellects. He wasn’t pleased with this latest stunt, but he had always been loath to call out their behavior. It was ultimately harmless this time, after all. It made Remus feel quite a lot of doubt, because he had watched Sirius pine after James for several years before they had gotten together. He knew that Sirius loved him and James loved Lily, but Remus always felt deep down that Sirius had only settled for him because it became clear that James and Lily were going to last. But that was his own issue, not their malicious intent. So when Sirius got home, sweaty and covered in scrapes but still unfairly attractive, he only handed him the paper with a raised eyebrow. Sirius, clever man that he was, took the tactic of distracting him with sex. 

Sirius felt gross. He didn’t like that he had avoided the conversation with Remus by proving he would do dirtier and more intimate things with his husband than he had with their friend. But that the larger part of his heart would always belong to James, was something he could not change, no matter how hard he had tried. He loved Remus, and he was happy with their life, but Sirius knew that given half the chance he would run into James’ arms. His husband’s fears were well founded. So distraction was about the best he could do. 

The Lupin-Black marriage was held together by the fact that James was and always had been 100% gone on Lily Evans. ‘Potter’ he reminded himself, ‘Lily Evans Potter’. Sirius had spent the better part of fifth and sixth year and some of seventh focusing his best flirting on his bespectacled best friend, and Sirius Black was a fine flirt if he did say so himself, to no avail. James had always brushed it off with a laugh or a joke. Sometimes it had seemed like he hadn’t even noticed, and Sirius had never been known for his subtlety. By winter break of seventh year, he had realized that his friend was just politely ignoring him to spare him the embarrassment of a flat-out rejection. He wished he had just been direct and saved him a couple years of miserable pining. 

The thing was, it had seemed like James had been pretty into that kiss, quite more than Sirius had been expecting from their performance. He felt that annoying little spark of hope start to hover slightly in his chest. Why did he keep doing this to himself? Every once in a while James would do something that Sirius would misinterpret as a sign of interest. That hope would rise no matter how forcefully he tried to inform it that it was delusional, only to be doused when he was reminded one way or another of the truth. He hated that he found himself wishing for something that would blow up all of their lives if it ever came to pass. Remus deserved better. He really did. Sirius thought that if he could turn off the part of him that loved James he would, but then he wondered what would be left if he did.


	2. New Year, Same Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a day in the life of angsty teenage wizards.

September 2 1976

Sirius had overslept on the first day of the new school year. His friends knew him well enough by now that they didn’t dare wake him when this happened. He prioritized a good sleep over lessons he could easily learn from skimming James or Remmy’s notes later. And when it was History of Magic, that wasn’t even necessary. There was no need to do any work for this class until exams or essays came up, at which point Sirius would take a day or two to read the material that had supposedly been taught in their class time- no one could testify to the veracity of that claim- and be all set. He was a little disgruntled at getting a late start this particular morning. Since their first class was essentially a free period, it was the perfect opportunity for extracurricular pursuits, and Sirius had a project this year he was determined to accomplish. He was going to get that lughead quidditch player’s attention. That wasn’t fair, James was very intelligent, the only one in the whole school who could keep up with his schemes. Just as of yet he seemed oblivious to Sirius’ intentions for their relationship. So he was determined to make himself as perfectly obvious as he could without doing irreparable damage to their friendship if James turned him down. That ruled out ideas like stripping and waiting on his bed for him to come back from detention some night, which seemed the most expedient strategy. 

As he plopped down in his seat, a hand reached out and placed a warm blueberry muffin in front of him. That was his Jamie, so thoughtful, always taking care of him and asking for nothing in return. The polar opposite of his parents, who provided him meals and clothes and expected that in exchange he would dedicate his life to pushing their dream of restoring monarchy to wizarding Britain with the Black family in power and muggle-borns the peasants begging for scraps. He looked up at square-jawed, messy haired, kind-eyed perfection, “You’re too good to me darling.” He waited for James to play along with the bit. _Come on Jamie, flirt back. Just a little._ When James said nothing, he arched an inquisitive eyebrow. James blinked rapidly and then laughed. Not even a real laugh. A forced little chuckle that died a second after it was born. Hmmph. This was going to be harder than he thought. 

Remus Lupin lifted his head up from his book to watch when Sirius Black strolled into History of Magic 20 minutes late on the first day of their N.E.W.T. level classes. Sirius Black with the dreamy silver eyes, and feather-like raven hair down to his shoulders. Sirius Black whose nonchalance about anything and everything was somehow a comfort to Remus’ anxiety rather than a stressor. He supposed he could always finish his reading later. Instead he fixed his gaze on Sirius’ seat, one row in front of him and one seat to the left, where it would stay for the remainder of the lecture. He felt a small twinge in his stomach as he watched Sirius stare appreciatively at James and attempt to flirt. James, for his part, didn’t even seem to notice how Sirius’ eyes followed his hand as it retreated to his own desk, or how they traced his jaw before lifting to meet his eyes. Remus knew his crush on his friend was hopeless. Sirius was smitten with James and James, well who could tell. The only person anyone could be sure James was smitten with was himself. 

James watched his best friend strut into class and over to the seat he had saved for him. Actually he hadn’t had to bother saving it. At this point, everyone knew that in any setting, the seat next to James Potter was reserved for Sirius Black. He hastily dug in his bag for the muffin he had wrapped up and placed a heat-preserving charm on at the end of breakfast. He knew Sirius would get grumpy by their third lesson of the day if he didn’t have something to eat, and blueberry was his favorite. As Sirius looked down at the muffin in front of him, his hair tumbled into his face, creating a veil between them. He took the opportunity to let his eyes run quickly over his body. His beater’s arms, bulkier than ever after a summer of almost daily practice, contrasted with his overall trim build. They tapered off at the elbow all the way down to long, narrow fingers decorated with a collection of rings, most of them spiked, that he had picked out in a muggle shop when they were buying him a new wardrobe a couple months back. James could feel the ghost of that arm slung around his neck, pulling him into Sirius. His hand would drape loosely over James’ chest, and James wished just once he would run his hand over his arm or his waist instead. Sirius had said something. He was giving James an expectant look, but he had been too lost in thought to catch it. He chuckled, because more often than not that was the correct response between them. Sirius didn’t seem totally pleased with this though, and James felt bad for not listening. Some friend he was, too busy eyeing him up to pay him proper attention. “What was that?” 

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” Sirius grumbled. Shit. James never wanted to be the reason Sirius sounded so disappointed, borderline annoyed. 

“Shag, marry, kill: Slughorn, Snape, You Know Who”

“Kill them all.”

“That’s against the rules. You have to pick.”

“Fine. Kill Voldy, marry Snape and poison the champagne, shag Slughorn, in the face, with the sharp end of a knife.” 

“Dark. Don’t reckon Sluggy deserves that.”

“You made me. It was either that or actually shag Slughorn, and that’s impossible.”

“Fair enough. Suppose that’s a valid answer.”

“You?”

“Oh I’d just kill them all, plain and simple.”

“Arse.” James smirked evilly, and they spent the rest of class debating which poisons they might be able to slip into champagne undetected and to what effect.

Lily Evans found it exceedingly difficult to concentrate the morning of her first day of sixth year with tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumbarse prattling on inanely behind her. She might be the only one in the room taking the class seriously. Sure, History of Magic was usually an easy grade, but they were starting their advanced study now that they had passed their O.W.L.s. Surely that warranted full attention, at least until they had an idea of the grading curve for N.E.W.T. students. Lily always tried to be fully alert in classes. No matter how well she scored on her exams each year, she still felt like she was playing catch-up with the purebloods to a certain degree. Maybe that was her own paranoia, but they had a lot of advantages after graduation. Lily would have to make up for lack of connections with superior grades. She wasn’t naturally the fastest learner, so it took a lot of dedication for her to do as well as she did, and she always felt like she was falling short. 

That’s why she was thrilled when professor Slughorn held her back at the end of a successful potions class to talk. She was pretty good with potions. It was just like cooking, if she took her time and followed the directions carefully, she would be successful. He was impressed with her attempt at the draught of living death. She hadn’t neared completing the potion, but he said he could see the precision in her process, and he expected that given the days to properly brew the potion, it would have been nearly perfect. He invited her to a dinner party on Friday evening. She had heard of Slughorn’s soireés, mostly from Slytherins when she had still been spending time with Severus. They were supposed to be mentorship gatherings for a handful of students Slughorn picked for their status and potential. Supposedly, he gave references and called in favors to get his favorites good positions in their field of choice later on. It was the kind of thing muggle-borns hardly ever got invited to. She jumped at the chance, assuring professor Slughorn that she would be there at 8. He smiled and patted her shoulder before dismissing her, and she beamed all the way to lunch.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will likely be irregular, don't hold your breath. Comments are appreciated :)


End file.
